High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) Part I

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is all the rage these days. Actually, its more likely to cause opinionated rage, at least on the Internet. In the summer of 2006 I was going to discuss this topic but got distracted by all the boozy goodness. Then Scott, at Scott's Rum Pages, brought up the point about HFCS in the Rum and Coke post. This reminded me that I was going to write something about this to clear up some misinformation. For cocktail creators, the key things is flavour and does HFCS mess with that. For the imbibers, I’ll look at the perceived health issues that pop up every now and then. Hopefully I can help demystify some of this.

The amount of misinformation on this one topic amazes me, from at least chemistry standpoint. For some reason HFCS seems to be the whipping boy of the bulging obesity epidemic. High fructose corn syrup has been blamed for everything, including diabetes, obesity, heart problems, attention deficit disorder and a whole bunch of other things. Finally, it is often gets blamed for ruining the flavour of Coca-Cola and other soft drink and products that switched from cane sugar. So could a simple sweetener really be all that bad?

First lets look at why HFCS has become the primary sweetener in the US.

Sugar Laws

The HFCS is mostly a problem in the United States, since most other countries still import most of their sugar (cane based). The reason for this is best summed up by Sam (slkinsey) on eGullet:

"US government price supports for domestic sugar combined with tarrifs on sugar imports have artificially driven up the price of sugar in the United States. Second, US government subsidies and other supports for corn growers have artificially lowered the price of corn syrup. Third, corn syrup is a liquid product and sugar is a solid product, which makes it easier to use corn syrup on an industrial basis. It also means that some re-tooling would be necessary to switch over to sugar."

Basically, the US government makes cane sugar more expensive than HFCS through tariffs and subsidies. Many people often ask how the process for making HFCS, which is fairly complex, can be cheaper than pure cane sugar? If tariffs and subsidies were removed I doubt it would be cheaper.

HFCS & Obesity

The weight gain issue that a lot of people like to place squarely on the shoulders of High Fructose Corn Syrup is a little misleading. Here is the key point to remember: It is not what kind of sugar you ingest, but how much of it that matters. This is a key fact that is so often overlooked. Sugar consumption is far, far higher today than it was 30 years ago and a couple magnitudes higher than a century ago. It is just a fact, humans were not designed to consume so much sugar, whether it’s sucrose, fructose, maltose, lactose or glucose.

Glucose is the primary energy source for humans. We usually get it from a varied diet of grains, meat and fruit. We are not suppose to drink pure sugar, which is pretty much what we do when we drink stuff like Coke or some cocktails.

The other issue is the lack of exercise the modern human gets. We spend most of our day sitting in a chair and then we go home and sit in front of the TV (or computer). Back when we were swinging from trees we had to work a lot harder to get our daily calorie intake. Today you can walk down to your local 7–Eleven and pick up a 64 oz Big Gulp that has over 800 calories, almost one third of your daily caloric intake! If you have four rum and Cokes in an evening that is going to add up to about 750 calories. Now if you are drinking four Pina Colada’s, say goodbye to your waste-line. It is not the high fructose corn syrup that’s killing us, its the quantity.

Take a look at bartenders, I can’t really recall seeing an obese one. Why? Because bartending is hard work. We stand for about 8 hours, move fast, lift lots of heavy stuff and sweat a lot because designers love to put lots of lighting over the bar to illuminate the bottles and broil the bartenders. Also, most bartenders don’t get a lunch break so our caloric intake is lower during our peak output times.

In HFCS Part II I'll take a look at the science behind HFCS and explain how sugars affect our metabolism.

6 Comments on High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) Part I

Darcy at his best!
This kind of articles are outstanding and they are so rare in the internet (especially in our field)! Well done and thank you for another interesting topic!

One comment: it is not only the US government which are supporting its domestic agriculture.

In Europe the EU is supporting sugar beet and makes sugar cane also more expensive through tariffs and subsidies...

That means for example that white cane sugar costs 5 - 10 times more as "normal" European caster sugar made out of sugar beet.

Now we could discuss how sugar from sugar beet differs from sugar cane...

May be you can pick this up as well?

By Krissy258 on December 7, 2007 3:56 PM

Thank you so much for this informative post. I agree completely that there is a lot of misinformation out there. You hit the nail head on:
"Here is the key point to remember: It is not what kind of sugar you ingest, but how much of it that matters."

By lee on October 22, 2008 4:28 PM

So by your logic if we ingest more fruits & vegetables we'll become more obese? It's about your sugar intake right?

HFCS free pop was around for about a century in this country and there was no obesity epidemic to speak of. This was despite the advent of TV, greater disposable income and inactivity that started to permeate American culture before the 80's.

It's not a coincidence that obese began to skyrocket after HFCS was introduced on a mass scale in the 80's. It's not a coincidence that America is the largest consumer of HFCS and is the most obese nation on the planet. HFCS is a major contributing factor to obesity and diabetes. Numerous studies confirm this fact.

Second, Canada and Europe source real cane sugar since we don't have significant tariffs on it, like the US. But, we still have high obesity rates. Canada and Europe are less obese than the US, but you have to factor in that these two regions have social healthcare systems. The public healthcare system allows people to get access to doctors with out paying through the nose and those doctors tend to take action when someone has unhealthy weight gain.

Over consumption is the problem, period. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. HFCS and cane sugar contain the same amount of calories, so how is it possible one makes you gain weight and the other supposedly doesn't? Magic?

If you read the real research, not just highly publizied research, you will understand that HFCS are not the real issue. But, most people get their info in 20 second TV commercial and on the "Internet".

By lee on October 23, 2008 1:59 AM

Your lame method of personal attacks is garbage Darcy.

And I think If you're going to lecture the public about nutrition and counter the arguements of those that actually study this field, and incidentally have a level of education higher than an technologist degree, you should offer some quantitative facts and reference a peer reviewed paper or empirically based study. This obviously isn't your area of expertise so therefore your myopic and general opinions do not carry much weight on their own. There's a lot more to this issue than just "caloric intake".

FYI Carrots, corn, sweet peas, and potatoes all contain comparable amounts of sucrose to many fruits. Some fruits conversely contain low amounts of sugar. As they exist in nature these foods do not lead one to obesity or diabetes because the body is able to process them efficiently. When you turn fruit into "juice", or process HFCS however this changes. The body simply does not process sugars well in these unnatural forms. With HFCS in the diet the situation is worse because only the liver is capable of metabolizing fructose and the body tends to store this as fat. There's also the effect of HFCS on appetite. Studies have shown that the body produces less leptin which curbs appetite. This is precisely why HFCS is so dangerous and there is loads of historical data to back this up.

Simple as caloric intake PERIOD? please. I'd have to be wearing leg warmers and playing Olivia Newton John to believe that bunk. It's a little more complicated than that Mr know it all. Health care system? Yeah, let's blame them after the fact for our bad diet. As if anyone that was morbidly obese ever became healthy because they had access to a physician anyway. please. It's a ridiculous notion. That's the least realistic arguement I've ever heard in my life.

As far as implying that I get my info from the "internet" isn't this a blog I am reading Mr big shot? Again, what's your expertise on nutrition? If you are any authority on this issue then why aren't you writing for a peer reviewed journal? Save me the "real research, not just highly publizied (sic) research" BS and your bar stool mixology.